Five Weeks
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Natasha never really learned much about weddings...unfortunately, she has to now, and there are certain parts that both the bride and groom are willing to compromise on when it comes to tradition.


He finds her up on the roof, after an hour of searching. He'd looked in all her usual hiding spots and it wasn't until he found each one empty that he'd thought of trying to find her in one of his hiding spots. His nest, she called it, that corner in the roof that he'd silently announced as his own until Stark had started to add to it bit by bit to create somewhat of a real nest for him. The corner now had two deck chairs and a fire pit, Stark insisted because Natasha kept following him up there and he knew that she disliked being cold no matter how much Clint could stand to sit out in all weathers.

She's sat with her legs drawn up on one of the deck chairs, not using any of the leg room that the chair provided. There was a small pout on her lips, the telltale sign that she was stressed as she watched a small fire burn in the pit. In the time that it took him to approach her he watched her poke it with a piece of broken metal that was leftover from one of Stark's recent excursions in the sky above Stark Tower.

He said nothing as he approached her, and she didn't jump when he nudged her back to get her to move forwards. She did so, letting him slide into the chair and didn't fight his arms when he pulled her back against him though she did keep her legs drawn up. She always insisted that Stark hadn't needed to put two chairs up there, as they rarely used seperate seating arrangements when they were alone, though she'd never have told Stark that. They simply alternated which seat they used each time they were up there to let Stark feel like he'd actually contributed by providing two chairs.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" he asked after a few minutes of silence. She'd never make the first move.

She shrugged. "Nothing."

"Wanna stop lying to me?" he tried again.

This time she sighed, lying her head back on his shoulder as she poked the fire once again. "Apparently I'm not very good at being a woman," she announced.

He smirked, his arms wrapping around her, one hand straying down to rest on the underside of her thigh, cementing her against him even if she did insist on keeping her knees drawn up close to her chest. *I wouldn't say that," he murmered into her ear. "But what makes you think that?"

He saw the scowl settle between her eyebrows as she stared at the fire.

"Oh, is this about lunch?" he asked her hesitantly. The scowl grew. "This is about lunch. How bad was it?"

She didn't answer, just pursed her lips and sat up, staring down into the flames that were consuming...wait, what was that? He sat up beside her, one arm still curled around her waist as the other took hold of the metal prod from her and lifted what she had thrown into the flames.

"Nat, is this...lace?"

She shrugged. "Maybe."

He looked closer at the burning fabric. "Is this a...veil?"

"It's a fifty-inch two tier veil, featuring five inches of authentic French Chantilly lace, feminine and lovely," she recited perfectly. "It is of popular opinion that I should be wearing one. Although, not in white. It should be diamond white or ivory tulle."

He looked at her, seemingly as disgusted and frightened of the burning fabric as she was. "What, all the time?"

"No," she smirked, nudging his shoulder with her own. "For the wedding. Apparently having bridesmaids means you have to sit and talk about lace and silk and garters for three hours, so...I retaliated..." she said, indicating to the lace and guiding his hand down so that the poker was almost dropping it back in the flames.

"Yes," he agreed, dropping it back into the fire to watch it burn. "I thought we agreed that the only lace, silk and garters involved in the wedding was for the wedding night?" he asked, leaning back against the chair again and drawing her with him. She allowed her legs to relax this time, laying out against his side.

"That's what I told them," she sighed. "But they have...other plans."

"Do I want to know what these 'other plans' are?" he asked.

"Unless you want to hear about plate designs, dress styles and a horrible rendition of twenty minutes of shoes, I wouldn't ask," she groaned, leaning her head on his shoulder.

He chuckled to himself, drawing his arms around her. "I suppose I shouldn't tell you about the bachelor party planning then?"

She looked up at him unfairly. "Tell me it doesn't involve shots, Vegas and property damage?"

He smirked, smoothing back her hair. "I could, but that would be a lie," he grinned, leaning to kiss her. "My bachelor party is going to be awesome, especially with Stark in charge, sorry about that."

She groaned, and he could only imagine what horrible feminimity the girls had planned for her. She pulled the collar of his shirt down. "Take me with you," she demanded. "Don't make me have a girls night."

He laughed more. "It's not a girls night, it's a bachelorette party."

"With girls. I don't do girls nights," she told him, still gripping his collar.

"Just one night," he said, tugging her more into his arms so that she was seated atop him, his arms pulling her down just enough to nudge her lips with his own. "One night, and when you get back we can make it all better..." he tempted, his lips then trailing along her jawline.

She sat up abruptly. "Actually, that doesn't fit in with the bridesmaids plans," she told him with a smirk.

He went to say something then stopped, looking up at her. "...excuse me?"

She shrugged, planting her hands on his chest so that he couldn't tug her back down to him. "Apparently we should be...saving ourselves...for the wedding night."

He gave her a confused expression, taking a long look down at her body before returning to her eyes. "So...no sex until the wedding night?"

"None at all," she told him.

"Starting now?"

"Starting four hours ago," she confirmed.

He gaped at her a little, struggling to find words. "But the wedding is like...five weeks away. Five weeks," he stressed.

She shrugged. "I know, but they said it would add some...purity to the relationship."

"Nooo," he protested in a childish whine. "We don't need any purity, we're doing perfectly fine with dirty and hot. It's already in a church, isn't that enough? Providing we don't spontaneously burst into flames when we walk in there."

She smirked at him, leaning dangerously close to his lips. "I tried to protest, but they're very firm about it. No sex until the wedding night, even if it is five weeks away."

"I can't do five weeks," he said insistantly. "I don't think I could do five days. In fact, with where you're sitting right now, I doubt I could make it five minutes. The blood rush might stop my heart." She moved above him, as if to get comfortable. "Oh, now that's not fair," he half moaned against her.

"Five weeks," she told him.

He kissed her. "Five minutes," he countered.

"Five weeks," she said firmly. "Or I'll feel the wrath of the bridesmaids, which means you'll feel the wrath of me."

He grinned at her, running his lips down her throat. "But I love your wrath..."

"Look what happened to the veil," she said, nodding to the fire pit. "Still love it?"

He flipped her, so that she was lying beneath him on the sun lounger. She looked amused, but his own eyes were dark with passion as he loomed over her, his face close to her as he spoke. "If you make me wait five weeks, I'm going to bend you over that alter the second they announce us man and wife," he told her, his husky voice alone enough to make her shudder but he draw her earlobe beneath his teeth just to add to the effect.

She grinned up at him, one of her legs hooking over his to trap him above her. "Is that a promise?" she teased him.

He half growled as he crushed his lips furiously to hers. Between her legs trapping his and his hands holding hers down, it wasn't clear who was pinning who down, but it was pinning them together in all the right places to make them both struggle with the five week rule that had been imposed on them. Just when he felt Natasha move beneath him in a way that had him convinced she had forgotten all about the rule, he pulled away, sliding from her legs to stand up.

"Well, I have some stuff to do so..."

She looked up at him as if he had bought phsyical harm onto a kitten right in front of her. "You're damn right you've got stuff to do," she said told him. "Now get back here and do it."

He grinned at her. "Oh, I will," he told her confidently, allowing her time to take note of how deliberately his eyes dragged over her body. "In five weeks."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "Five minutes," she told him.

He smirked, even though the tone of her voice made him want to pin her back to the sun lounger and change 'minutes' to 'seconds'. "No, I clearly remember you said 'five weeks'. I believe it coincided with the wedding."

She glared at him again, and he knew that look clearly. It was the glare that told him he would suffer great pain to his nether reigons if he didn't throw her up against the wall and show her a good time. It was a glare that he had never argued against. Until now. He simply leaned down and kissed her lips with a frustrating softness.

"Have fun burning things," he told her brightly as he started to walk back to the main living area. "See you in five weeks."

He could feel the glare cutting into the back of his head as he closed the door behind him, and he knew that he would suffer for it endlessly, but at least she wasn't angry about lace anymore.


End file.
